Michigan regulator involved in Flint crisis takes new job

Associated Press

Mike Prysby, a Michigan water quality official who told
Flint that a chemical wasn't needed to prevent lead corrosion
from pipes, now works in the DEQ's Water Resources Division's
Transportation and Flood Hazard Unit.

LANSING — A Michigan water quality official who told Flint that a chemical wasn't needed to prevent lead corrosion from pipes has taken a different job in the state Department of Environmental Quality.

Mike Prysby, who was a district engineer with the Office of Drinking Water and Municipal Assistance and had been responsible for Genesee County, home to Flint, began working in the Water Resources Division's Transportation and Flood Hazard Unit on March 28. That was the day before a supervisor at Flint's water plant, Mike Glasgow, testified at a legislative hearing that Prysby told him before Flint switched to a local river for water in 2014 that phosphate wasn't required.

For nearly 18 months, Flint residents drank and bathed with water that had coursed through aging pipes and fixtures, scraping away lead. By the time Gov. Rick Snyder announced in October that Flint would return to its earlier source of treated water, the Detroit municipal system, dangerously high levels of the toxic metal were detected in the blood of some residents, including children, for whom it can cause lower IQs and behavioral problems.

DEQ spokeswoman Melanie Brown said Prysby took a position that opened up when someone was promoted, and his switch was not a forced transfer.

"The department continues to cooperate with internal investigations regarding staff actions in Flint," she told The Associated Press in an email.

A message seeking comment was left Monday for Prysby, who has declined previous requests for an interview.

Snyder has apologized for his administration's failures related to Flint's water crisis while also blaming "career bureaucrats" in state and federal governments. A task force appointed by Snyder has said the DEQ was the primary culprit because regulators misinterpreted a federal rule in telling Flint water officials not to treat the Flint River for corrosion until after two six-month monitoring periods.

The DEQ's director and communications director resigned in December. Snyder fired the department's top drinking water official, and a district supervisor is on paid leave after being suspended five days without pay in January for actions related to the Flint crisis — the maximum allowed under civil service rules.